Antarctica is warming faster, according to scientists

Antarctica, the one continent in the world that scientists thought was cooling, is actually getting hotter according to new evidence that has serious implications for climate change.

By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent Last Updated: 9:17PM GMT 21 Jan 2009

Previously it had been thought that the South Pole was actually getting colder because the hole in the ozone layer was letting heat out.
However new satellite technology that allows temperature readings to be taken from the interior of the massive continent shows that, overall, Antarctica is warming.
Although the slight increase in temperature will not affect the world in the short term, in the long term it could lead to a rise in sea levels threatening coastal communities and endangered species like the Emperor penguin.
Scientists studying climate change have long believed that while most of the rest of the globe has been getting steadily warmer, a large part of Antarctica – the east Antarctic ice sheet – has actually been getting colder.
But new research from the University of Washington (UW) shows that for the last 50 years, much of Antarctica has been warming at a rate comparable to the rest of the world. The data was taken from satellite readings that were able to estimate temperatures from inaccessible areas in the interior.
The findings, published in Nature magazine, show that warming in west Antarctica exceeded a 10th of a degree Celsius per decade for the last 50 years which more than offset the cooling in east Antarctica. Furthermore as the ozone hole begins to close, with the phasing out of chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs, the warming affect is expected to increase.
There are fears that climate change could cause the ice sheet to disintegrate - raising global sea levels by as much as five metres.
Eric Steig, professor of earth and space sciences at UW, said the study shed new light on the long-term effects of climate change.
"There is significant warming in Antarctica expected in the future and it will in the next 100 years or less become more serious and we will see melting of the icecaps in West Antarctica like we have seen on the Arctic peninsula which has serious implications for the stability of the icecap as a whole," he said.